This is the general announcement for the University of South Carolina mirror of this year's Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament (MUT), which will be held in Columbia on Saturday, March 17, 2012. Please read this entire announcement, especially information concerning the St. Patrick’s Day festival in 5 Points. This has potential ramifications for tournament attendees. Anyone with questions should e-mail me at ericd25@hotmail.com . You can register by e-mailing me too!

The difficulty of MUT this year will be approximately the same as the past few, or between ACF Fall and ACF Regionals in difficulty. It is being written by members of the Minnesota and UIUC quizbowl teams. For more information, please see the official MUT 2012 announcement thread here.

To get a discount, buzzers must actually work for the purpose of a normal quizbowl game; that is, they must have eight working activators, a working control box, and either a working power cord or a fresh battery, as applicable. Don't bring broken buzzers to the tournament. That's actually worse than bringing no buzzers at all! Don't bring broken staffers either.

Staffer discounts will go to any team with someone who is ready, willing, and able to serve. Staffers must be available for the entire tournament. Even if we don't use your team's volunteer(s), your team will still get the discount(s).

*Any other potential discounts should be discussed with me and will decided on a case by case basis.

ELIGIBILITY:This tournament is primarily for undergraduate students.You can be any year in playing as an undergraduate as long as you are in a typical degree-earning program. By undergraduate, I am defining as "have not earned a bachelor's degree" or the equivalent of such (i.e., you can have played five years of college quizbowl and still be an undergraduate).You can play if you are a high schooler.You cannot play if you are not in school at all. If you graduated like in the fall, you can play--that's cool.You cannot play on an open team. You must play for your college or educational institution (obviously if you need to "go rogue" as a high schooler that's okay).You generally cannot play if you are a graduate student. There are occasional gray areas here, so run any potential "question mark" eligibility cases with me (and I'll pass it along to the MUT editors in Minnesota).

REGISTRATION:To register, please e-mail me at ericd25@hotmail.com with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you plan to bring, along with an e-mail address where you can be contacted with details. The field is currently capped at 12 teams, pending more staff, so registration is first come, first serve.

LOCATION/DIRECTIONS/PARKING/ST. PATRICK’S DAY FESTIVALThe tournament will take place in the Gambrell Hall. We will meet in the lobby. There are a few meter parking lots in the immediate vicinity and several parallel meters along Barnwell, College, and Pendleton streets. The regular meters are not checked on Saturdays, though there are a few 15 minute meters that are. The Cocky mascot is pointing to the building here, and the green represents the metered lots. Located in the geographic center of South Carolina, Columbia is a fairly short drive from anywhere in South Carolina. It is 1.5 hours from Charlotte and 3.5 hours from Atlanta.

As noted earlier, it is very important to keep in mind that, on the 17th, the annual St Patrick’s Day celebration will be taking points in the 5 Points district, which is very close to the business school building. This event is a big deal, attracting about 40,000 revelers every year. Obviously, this creates potential parking and traffic issues. With proper precautions, I don’t expect that this will create significant problems for the tournament. I HIGHLY recommend that teams arrive no later than 8:30 AM on the morning of the tournament. Tourney staff will be on hand by 8:00. Play should begin at 9:00. However, we will be lenient if the St. Pats festivities make anyone moderately tardy.

For those who have eaten lunch in 5 Points before, you’ll probably have to go elsewhere this time as there is a $12 fee to enter 5 Points for the festival. There are lots of other places to go, though, and we will provide a food map.

FREELANCE STAFFERS:We’d love to have you! Contact me if you want to staff the tournament.

PAYMENT:All teams must pay on Saturday morning in one of two forms: cash, or a personal or institutional check made out to "Eric Douglass". Do not make checks out to any other person or entity besides "Eric Douglass." If you need an invoice ahead of time so that your sponsor can cut a check, let me know. If you do not pay us the day of the tournament, you will be charged a $25 late fee.

TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, though only four may play at one time. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day—no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may also play shorthanded with as few as one players.

FORMAT: The format will vary depending on the number of teams that register, but we will strive to offer all teams at least 10 games, and we will keep individual statistics. Trophies will be awarded to the top 2 teams, and book prizes will be awarded to at least the top 8 individual scorers.

FOOD: Breakfast and lunch will not be provided. There are a large number of eateries on and around campus, and we will provide teams with a food guide.

I'm copying Mike Cheyne's of Minnesota's post from the master MUT thread to clarify what teams are eligible to come to this tournament. Let me know if anyone has questions on this or anything else regarding the USC mirror:

Note about eligibility:

This tournament is for undergraduates. You can be any year in playing as an undergraduate as long as you are in a typical degree-earning program. By undergraduate, I am defining as "have not earned a bachelor's degree" or the equivalent of such (i.e., you can have played five years of college quizbowl and still be an undergraduate).

You can play if you are a high schooler.

You cannot play if you are not in school at all. If you graduated like in the fall, you can play--that's cool.

You cannot play on an open team. You must play for your college or educational institution (obviously if you need to "go rogue" as a high schooler that's okay). We are aware that occasionally field sizes may require some flexibility here--please contact us if this is something that needs resolved.

You cannot play if you are a graduate student. I am aware that there are occasional gray areas here, so I would urge all TD's to run any potential "question mark" eligibility cases with the MUT editors. If we determine there is a bad faith example of eligibility gaps being broken, we will not be amused.

For those coming to MUT at USC tomorrow, we will be in a new building. We will meet in Gambrell Hall. It is a very short walk from our original venue, the business school, so parking is the same. Here is a map showing where Gambrell is:

Congratulations to Georgia Tech for winning the USC mirror of the Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament. Tech ran the field, finishing 10-0. South Carolina A and Wofford tied for second. Phong Nguyen of USC A was the leading scorer. Thanks to USC alums Bryn Reinecke and JR Fennell for reading/scorekeeping. Thanks also to Will Butler of Georgia Tech for staffing as well as "Red" from Clemson and another staffer provided by Clemson (sorry, I'm bad with names).

I am fairly sure that the stats for the first NGU-Clemson game are incorrect, as it says that we got no bonus questions correct and Justin (who should have one 10 and one -5 for the entire tournament) is listed as our top scorer for that round.

eldermaas wrote:I am fairly sure that the stats for the first NGU-Clemson game are incorrect, as it says that we got no bonus questions correct and Justin (who should have one 10 and one -5 for the entire tournament) is listed as our top scorer for that round.

I'll see about getting that fixed. I haven't had a chance to double check the stats, and seeing as how my computer broke, it might be a few days before I can fix it. Thanks for the heads up!